For Want of a Nail

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

The more the I read the story of the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, the more that I think of the verse above. The verse above is meant to teach us about the consequences of events and of our actions. No, I am not thinking here primarily about bin Laden’s evil actions, but of the amazing bits of evidence that led to the raid.

The hunt for bin Laden sort of began during the presidency of Bill Clinton. Can any of you remember the cruise missiles that were lobbed at a desert site in order to get bin Laden? But, the hunt was picked up in earnest after the bombings of 9/11. President Bush promised justice, and sent troops into Afghanistan seeking out those who had declared war on the USA. Can you all remember the bombing of Tora Bora and the fearsome search of the areas by our troops?

But, it seemed that we were always the one who had a horseshoe nail missing. Somehow, bin Laden had just left the desert camp that was bombed during the Clinton years. Somehow, bin Laden had just managed to slip out ahead of our troops during the Bush years. Tora Bora was the last time that we had reliable evidence on bin Laden for several years. And then he disappeared to become like a mythical figure that encouraged jihadists and troubled our night dreams which sometimes became nightmares, in the various bombings that he fomented.

But, late in the Bush years, a nail finally dropped from one of Osama’s horses. It took until the presidency of Obama for that little piece of information to lead the USA to sufficient information that, after discussion at several meetings, President Obama was able to give the “make it so” command and the raid took place. It has been over 10 years since Osama first attacked and nearly 10 years since his masterful attack against the Twin Towers. Finally, he fell because of a little nail, a little piece of information that led to him just one step at a time.

Oddly enough, this made me think about myself and about two books. One is C.S. Lewis’ book, The Screwtape Letters. The other is  Lorenzo Scupoli’s, Unseen Warfare. The one was an English university don. The other was a monk. But, they both give us the same warning. Satan is tremendously deceitful, and so is our flesh and our inner thoughts. In both cases, a rather large sin can come as the result of what appears to be a very small neglect on our parts. Perhaps we are just a little too picky about our food. (Did you know that the Fathers considered an extreme gourmand attitude to be part of the sin of gluttony?) Perhaps we consider that we have the right to some petty self-satisfaction in a “matter of honor.”

And so it begins, with just one very small neglect on our parts. It is true that, theologically, a reasonable argument can be made that there is a difference between a venial sin and a mortal sin. One needs only read about the “sin unto death” and other notations in Scripture and in the Fathers. But, the Fathers were quite clear that no sin can be safely disregarded. When Saint Paul said to, “examine yourselves to see if you are still in the faith,” he was driving the point home that the slide into the most horrible of sins often begins not with a willful decision to sin large, but with a petty grievance or a petty desire which, left unchecked, can lead to a kingdom being lost, in this case, the Kingdom of Heaven.

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.